Tonearm ...... Acos Lustre GST-801 ..... Yea/Nay

I owned, and used, a  Lustre GST-801 for about 10 years and sold it with the turntable. Wish I had kept the tonearm and ditched the turntable! Great arm when working properly.

@chakster 

Very well....do you find it useful to use the five-position damper on the back of the counterweight?

Are the counterweights of your Epa 100 still sealed or leaking silicon oil?
I have already had an Epa 100 overhauled with the counterweight drawing small traces of silicone oil on the outside.

Very well....do you find it useful to use the five-position damper on the back of the counterweight?

It was a mess to figure out how to assemble all the parts of the counterweight mechanism correctly when i bought my first beaten sample of GST-801. This counterweight is indeed a bit strange, there are rubber washers and a thin metal washer too. Luckily with my NOS sample everything was assembled correctly on the factory.

Are the counterweights of your Epa 100 still sealed or leaking silicon oil?
I have already had an Epa 100 overhauled with the counterweight drawing small traces of silicone oil on the outside.

Owned two samples of the EPA-100 and one EPA-100 mkII i have never seen any leakage from the counterweight. The only problem i have had with my first EPA-100 (after complete rewire with VdH silver cable) was a bad grounding of the arm, i think a person who did s job was not qualified or not tested it, he did some mistakes with a ground wire. The arm itself wasn’t perfectly grounded. So with my next samples i’m pretty much ignored the idea of rewiring, when everything is just perfect i do not want to upgrade anything (my rule number one now).

I have a parts Gst 801. Have the heavier counterweight, a factory head shell, a cloned weight ring made od stainless steel. The wand and cue device are like new. Missing the on the fly base, but have a macined Rega style, and the magnetic vtf pieces were cracked and crumbling. But the hard to find parts are there.

Dear @elliottbnewcombjr: I own the Lustre 801 and as @reubent posted: it's a great tonearm , I can say a top tonearm and outperformed by no one other tonearms I experienced and I experienced ( own,owned and listened. ) more that 20 tonearms.

@neonknight  posted:

"""  Its far more affordable than a Fidelity Research or SAEC, and of similar quality.  """

yes , it's more affordable but not on that " low " quality level but a way way higher quality levels than the SAEC or FR that I owned too and I mean it: the GST-801 outperformas those tonearms easy.

@bestgroove posted:

"""  Lustre 801 is tonearm for MC heavy not for MM medium or high compilance. """

this is untrue too. The 801 makes very good job with any MC/MM cartrio
dges nio matters its compliance. Is very well damped tonearm and beats even the EPA-100 and different than the EPA 100-MK2.

This one comes complete and at really good price, don't miss it: Very rare to find on that good conditions:


https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649571086-lustre-801-tonearm/


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.